Hidden motives

If there were no oil in the Middle East and if there were no Israel in the Middle East, we would not be at war there with 140,000 troops. Since there is oil in the Middle East and since Israel is in the Middle East, the Bush administration must offer the people of the United States important but secondary reasons for our vast military presence there - freedom, democracy, fighting terrorism, limiting nuclear expansion - and the list varies by the month.

The American people, especially the soldiers in Iraq, could hardly accept a declaration by the administration that we are primarily fighting to control someone else's oil or primarily to defend Israel without the involvement of Israel's soldiers.

With Bush declaring "I am a war president" and with leaders of both parties (Clinton, Pelosi, McCain, et al.) promoting change by force and war and publicly proclaiming their bias toward Israel rather than balance, the immediate future of the United States appears to be more of the same. War is a failure of diplomacy. A charismatic statesperson with a world vision is needed, but where?

"Yes, we tried and tried to talk to the nineteen hijackers and all the multitudes of terrorists attackers, and it just didn't seem to work."

Really? 15 of those 19 were from Saudi Arabia, where the US established military bases that these hijackers saw as blasphemous to their religion, whose most holy sites are in that country. One of the reasons for the Iraq war was to establish military bases so that the Saudi bases could be closed down. Like everything this adminstration has done, that plan has backfired spectacularly.

While I agree mostly with this LTE, I believe there is a very important point being left out here.
Yes, of course this occupation has very much to do with oil and Israel; but the other main objective being achieved here is the all important establishment of permanent military bases in Iraq.

Just look at a map and you can immediately understand why having our military bases there is a dream come true for the government/special interests. This was actually the point the neo-cons have lobbied for the hardest, even back during the Clinton administration they were trying to concinve him to go into Iraq because we need to have a strong military bases in the heart of the Middle East.

It is not just enough to have US/Britians' oil companies and other multi-national firms operating in Iraq, they won't get anywhere unless the have the US Military backing them up and securing the worries of investors in a new and strage marketplace.
This is just the harsh grim reality of how huge the military-industrial complex has become.

Eisenhower warned us of this is his farewell speech. Very few people listened to what he was saying.

One thing that has not beeen mentioned his "W"'s belief that he is doing "God's Will".
Sometimes I wonder how much of his thinking is clouded by his "Faith".

I don't know a whole lot about Evangelical Christian sects, but I have heard they have some very strong views on the Apocalypse and Israel. And all you have to do is a quick read of Revelations to know that means Iraq.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge on this subject could provide some details.

RT, I find it interesting that you now agree this is a huge mistake, but you still want to go full speed ahead. And are you now conceeding that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11?

Never underestimate the ability of the perpetually dissatisfied to find some bone of contention if they're determined to find a bone of contention. Mecca - not Saudi Arabia - is holy. The U.S. stands in the way of terrorists imposing their will upon their fellow man. They would thus dislike the U.S. for A or B or C or any other long list of excuses. Giving credence to fake outrage just encourages a cycle of perpetual outrage and facilitates a dysfunctional society from addressing its own problems.

Funny how all of the shibboleths of the radical Left don't apply if it means aligning against American policies at the price of abandoning Muslims, Jews, Christians, women, children, gays, atheists, the poor, the downtroden ... or anyone else who gets in the terrorists' way. For some, there is no Truth but anti-Americanism.

In your perspective. To me, and the rest of the non-loonies opposed to the war, not much has changed. Seriously, what you are seeing is the predictable result of plunging a deeply divided country into anarchy, and having millions of people in poor living conditions, who are heavily armed, and have less than no faith in the power of the government to protect them from each other.

Did it have to be this way? Probably not, and it's possible that with a competent administration concerned more with practicalities than theories, we might be looking at a stable, peaceful Iraq today.

But none of this has "just suddenly happened" - it's been going on for years now, slowly building steam, all the while you and those like you were all too eager to gobble up the newest assertion of how "we're turning the corner" or the "insurgency is in its last throes" and "the liberal media doesn't report all the GOOD stories".

It's a damn train wreck. And like most train wrecks, you could see it coming a mile away, if you cared to.

The real reason for the bitterness and persistence of human conflicts has little to do with resources and everything to do with ideology, opinions, beliefs and traditions.

It is our culture, history and belief-systems which make us what we are. We look at the rest of nature and see carnivores killing to eat, but we do not see zebras forming armies to wage war on gnus. It is only humans, with their congenital vice of inventing differences of politics and faith, who murder one another because they disagree. And what makes the tragedy more poignant is that the less secure their grounds for belief, the more anxious and violent their adherence to it - and the greater their readiness to kill and die in its defense.

Ever heard of Medina? It happens to be the second holiest site for Muslims, and it's also in Saudi Arabia.

It doesn't matter what you think of the "holiness" of Saudi Arabia, James. What does matter is that a very large percentage of the citizens of Saudi Arabia consider the entire country to be holy. Among them is Osama bin Laden, whose very public split from the Saudi elite was over the creation of several massive US bases in Saudi Arabia before the first US Gulf War. In fact, it was probably the main impetus for the founding of al Qaeda.

Every one of the 15 Saudi hijackers on 9-11 found the presence of those bases in Saudi Arabia at least as insulting as the average Joe here would a Saudi base in the US (shouldn't have a half dozen or so of those-- just to be fair?)

So cheer on US imperialism all you want, James-- just don't be in such denial about its downsides.

Posted by right_thinker (anonymous) on November 28, 2006 at 2:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"but it was WMD's .....in the vein of conspiracy theories, will we someday discover the what or how or where of them? Who knows?"

WMD's--Conspiracy theory? Who is spinning the conspiracy here RT? The facts are not on the side of "W". You need to go back to the "Bush Rhetoric" thread from the other day and read my posts about the Forged Document Niger Uranium scandal.
This is NOT a theory, there is evidence that cannot be disputed. Even Powell and "W" were forced to admit they used forged documents four months after the invasion, but it was too late. Anyone who spoke out against them once troops were on the ground was called a "terrorist", perhaps you even called a few Americans this term.

Furthermore, while the intelligence community can certainly be blamed for several things, you cannot blame them for leading us to war when everyone in the intelligence community told the administration they were using phoney info, and they Did it AnyWays!

Just like everyone in the intelligence communities were telling this administration in the summer of '01 that "Bin Laden is determined to attack in the US" and they did Nothing anyways. How many American people and Iraqi people will have to die before WE will hold this Administration accountable???

"go after any and all madmen dictators whether we like it or not, he (SH) was in violation and flipping us the bird.."

RT this is not the third grade. We cannot just start international wars because we don't like someone and they flipped us off. If the US went after all the "madman dictators" we would be occupying on every continent but Antarctica and it would take a "madman dictator" to do it!

"we sometimes vastly underestimate the will of a people with nothing to lose. "

Well you have just gone and repeated the mistake again by continuing to underestimate the Iraqi people. "Nothing to lose", no they have Everything to lose, that is why they are fighting so hard.

Posted by scetwe (anonymous) on November 28, 2006 at 7:12 p.m.
"persistence of human conflicts has little to do with resources and everything to do with ideology, opinions, beliefs and traditions."

scetwe, you bring up a very interesting point here. But I would argue that initially most conflicts began out of a need for resources, even before elightened ideas such as ideology came into to play. Therefore I believe one could venture to say that many of these ideologies and opinions were later formed around the need for resources and how humans form relationships to aquire those resources.
Communism and Capitalism would be examples of what I am getting at, these ideologies were formed out of conflicts dealing with resources.

Just two cents for the pile. Otherwise I completely agree. Obviously my theory does not hold up as well if we are talking strictly about religious wars. But some of those were also fought inpart for resources, though not always the given reasons.